The XX Factor: What women really think.

In Favor of Public Shaming For Cell Phone Misconduct: A Rant

I’m more of an etiquette snob than self-proclaimed etiquette expert Anna Post. Or so it seemed at yesterday’s “Mobile Etiquette Tea,” where she and Intel’s Dr. Geneveive Bell discussed what’s socially acceptable use of cell phones, smart phones, lap tops, and e-mail.

Over finger sandwiches and a tower of cupcakes at the Russian Tea Room, a woman posed a hypothetical for Anna, the granddaughter of Emily Post: Who is ruder, the person jabbering away on her cell phone on the bus while everyone around her grows increasingly annoyed, or the annoyed seatmates who spent 10 minutes rolling their eyes and harrumphing and generally trying to make it passive aggressively clear to her that she should shut up? Anna said that, as with someone who spills red wine all over a dinner table, the proper way to deal with the “accidental offender” is to keep your annoyance to yourself so the situation can be smoothed over as quickly as possible ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).